Is Iran Anti-Semitic? The Dangers of a Contemporary Casus Belli
An examination of oft-made criticism by Israel and American Jewish organization.
By Joshua Tartakovsky
Diyarbakir, Turkey
January 5, 2020
A common claim made against the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially from the Israeli government or from American Jewish organizations, and also from the US government (it has recently become somewhat difficult to separate between the Israeli and US governments as their lines seem to be the same), is that Iran is hostile to Jews for being Jews, and that it is antisemitic.
It is true that Iranians are Aryans and not semites, and therefore theoretically, the argument that some Iranians can possibly be antisemitic makes more sense than arguing that Arabs, who are semites, are antisemitic. The latter is a nonsensical view but it has been made over and over again.
In the late 6th century before Christ, the Persian King Cyrus, granted permission to the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Holy Temple (known in Hebrew as Beit HaMikdash) [Ezra 6:14]. While some settler groups in Israel often make the argument that US President Donald Trump is a modern King Cyrus for de facto recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over Eastern Jerusalem occupied by Israel by stating that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, King Cyrus was a Persian. During the time of the Cyrus’ declaration a sizeable Jewish community lived in Persia. While of course it is true that King Cyrus belonged to a different era, sympathy and affinity to Jews and the existence of a large Jewish community in Persia are two historical facts that go back thousands of years and are deeply rooted in Persian culture. Of course, opposition to the modern state of Israel, a political body, should not be confused with hatred of Jews for being Jews, hatred of Iranian Jews, for example.
The Biblical book of Esther tells the story of how Hamas wanted to annihaliate the Jews of Persia. The sinister plot was subverted by the heroic actions of queen Esther who married Ahasuerus. The tombs of the biblical figures Esther and Mordechai are preserved in Iran until today and are holy sites for Muslims and Jews alike. Recently, there have been attempts by Iranian radicals to burn down the shrine and replace it with a Palestinian consulate, in response to Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem, that Muslims name al Quds as Israel’s capital. However, while Jewish American organizations rushed to condemn Iran for the attempted act of vandalism, the shrine is protected by Iranian law. Contrast this with acts of vandalism carried out by Jewish settle youth against mosques and churches, that do not receive condemnation from organizations such as the anti-Defamation League, and if they do, the ADL does not make the leap of considering Israel a state sponsor of terrorism and of acts of hate against religious minorities while it rushes to do so against Iran for acts committed by individuals.
According to the US Holocaust Museum, during World War II, Iran permitted the arrival of 116,000 Polish Jews via the Soviet Union some of whom later made their way to Palestine. In 1943, Iran declared war against Germany. While, once again, the Iran of Reza Shah should not be confused with revolutionary Iran, the case of Iran should not be confused with that of Europe as the former has a long history of friendship towards the Jewish people stretching back thousands of years.
Iranian diplomat Abdol-Hossein Sardari based in Paris saved thousands of Jews during World War II.
At the present, the largest community of Jews outside of Israel exists in Iran. Iranian Jews are proud to be Iranian. There is a Jewish member of the Iranian parliament. The Jewish population of Iran stands at 15,000 Jews. At the same time it is true that following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Jews were barred from holding positions of power in high levels of government for fear they would serve as agents for Israel.
Pro-Israel organizations frequently make the claim that testimonies of Iranian Jews cannot be trusted since the live under an oppressive regime. However, the large number of Iranian Jews testifies to the fact that many Iranian Jews are largely content remaining in Iran. Even Rabbi Manis Friedman, a right-wing Jewish American rabbi accused of condoning a genocide of Palestinians, admitted that Ayatollah Khomeini did not oppose Jews but the State of Israel and the Zionist movement. In this vein, it should be added that the US and Israel granted very substantial support to the oppressive regime of the Shah. Israel granted training and enjoyed close relations with the Savak, Iran’s notorious intelligence agency that tortured tens of thousands of dissidents.
While Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been accused by the US media for denying the Holocaust, his controversial statements called for an open inquiry into what actually took place during World War II, and did not outright deny that the Holocaust took place. Unless one wants to make the argument that the Holocaust is a religion, and therefore immune of historical investigation using scientific methods, every historical incident should be open to investigation and to further research. Only those who fear an exposure that challenges their facts – or those who are too pained by history that they have turned it into an article of faith – will object to an open investigation of an historical event, including the Holocaust. At the same time, it should be clear, that investigating any historical event should be carried out by acccredited academics using established historical tools and methods. (It was Professor Bernard Lewis, not President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who did not merely call for an investigation of the Armenian genocide but stated outright that the mass killing of Armenians that took place did not constitue a genocide since it the Armenians rebelled against the existing powers and their suppression was therefore a political act, not one based on their ethnicity. Lewis recounted in an autobiography that he co-authored with his third wife that he received some harsh criticism in the French media and had to pay a symbolic fee after losing a case of defamation. However, he was not ostracised by the international community for his claims. On the contrary, he became a personal mentor of sorts to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.)
In recent years, by the order of Ayatollah Khamenei, Ahmadinejad has been barred from running to public office. Ahmadinejad does not represent the voice of the Iranian government today. For example, he criticized harshly the Iran-China 25 year trade deal made several months ago. While Ahmadinejad is no longer in power, while serving as president he met with a minority Jewish ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist group, kissing and hugging them in fact, hardly what one would expect from a modern day Nazi.
Most recently, writers for the pro-Israeli paper the Jerusalem Post made the claim that Iran is antisemitic due to the fact that it claimed that Israel may carry out false attacks in Iraq to instigate a war between Iran and the United States. However, it is an historical fact that the Mossad carried out terrorist attacks against Jewish synagouges in the 1951 to promote Jewish migration to Israel. Zionist involvement in Iraq goes earlier. Jewish underground terrorist organization leader, David Raziel, was placed in Iraq as he collaborated with the British. In light of these historical precedents, and due to Benjamin Netanyahu’s promotion of a war in Iraq, it is fair to make the claim that Israel may try to cause a provocation in Iraq and it is not antisemitic to claim so. If to use Talmudic logic known as Kal Vachomer which means by extrapolation, if Israel could carry out attacks against Jews, there is no inherent reason why it would shy from carrying out terrorist attacks against non-Jews. If Israel already attacked a US navy ship in the past, and it did, it is not inconceivable that it will attack covertly a US target via proxies for the sake of provoking a wider confrontation between US and Iran.
Trump is in his last few days in office. The Israeli government largely holds that Israel’s relationship with Trump is as good as it gets. It therefore may try to maximize its advantages while it can. It would be beneficial if Trump would focus on the plight of Americans at home instead of spending millions on war games abroad especially since it is not in US interest to be in Iraq, as Trump himself admitted. However, with the death toll hitting American citizens, it may be tempting to seek distractions, as morally justified or unjustified as they may be, abroad.
